Cyprus and NATO: The truth
The question of the relationship of Cyprus to NATO was brought again to the fore by a recent article of a newspaper headlined “Cyprus in the waiting room of NATO”. AKEL, faithful to its anti-NATO stand, rushed to ask the government, through its deputy Giorgos Loukaides, whether “the turning of Cyprus into an advance guard post of the Wes and NATO is an official policy of the government”. The answer of the Foreign Minister Nicos Christodoulides was clear-cut. “At this moment there are no advanced talks on the domestic front for something like this”. The same stands for the participation of Cyprus in the Partnership for Peace. This was clearly stated by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Ioannis Kasoulides, who referred to the difficulties of joining the PfP, due to a possible veto of Turkey, as it is the case with NATO.
Based on my deposition here below, it is quite obvious that it was the Americans and the British who did not want Cyprus to join NATO.
In May 1975, President Makarios participated in the Heads of government meeting of the commonwealth, convened in Kingston (Jamaica). It was the first international conference he attended after the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey and his return to the island in December 1974.
On the eve of the meeting he invited to dinner the Cyprus delegation and me, Assistant Director then in the Commonwealth Secretariat. After the dinner, he asked me to stay in order to inform him about the procedure which was agreed for the creation of the “Commonwealth committee for Cyprus”, a token of solidarity towards a Commonwealth sister country. It was only ten months after the Turkish invasion and the memories of this great tragedy were still very vivid. It was only natural, therefore, to talk about the Cyprus problem.
I asked the President how we reached this situation, in view of this stand that “we belong to the western world”. His answer was that in 1965 he proposed to the Americans the accession to NATO and they refused. This was confirmed to me in September 1976, by Ambassador Nicos Demetriou, in Washington, giving me also the name of President Makarios’ envoy who was his Minister of Finance Renos Solomonides. In August 1977 I have met Mr. Solomonides in Nicosia and he mentioned to me that he was the one who raised the matter with the American ambassador and not the foreign minister Spyros Kyprianou, because of his good relations with the United States.
The answer of the Americans was because of the Turkish objections.
The question of the accession of Cyprus to NATO dates back to 1959, when the Agreements for the Establishment of the Republic of Cyprus were signed, and the United Kingdom was opposed. It was then, for the first time, that both Makarios and Grivas gave the green light for the accession of Cyprus to NATO. This was mentioned in 1975 by Makarios to
negative,
probably George Iacovou and later confirmed to him by Evangelos Averof (Greek politician and former Foreign Minister) in Germany where Mr. Iacovou was serving as Ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus.
This information was part of a briefing by Minister Iacovou at a meeting in the Foreign Ministry, in the presence of the then Political Director Elias Ipsarides. If we examine now chronically this second attempt of Makarios to secure accession of Cyprus to NATO (1965), we might consider the hypothesis that his concern was to shield Cyprus against Turkey, after the bombardment of Tillyria by the Turkish air force in 1964. In practice however, what is happening is to the contrary, if we take into account the incidents of “Hora”, “Imia” and the nearly daily violations of the Greek airspace by the fighters of the NATO ally Turkey!
That was the situation then and the position of the West. In the present environment I do not see Cyprus becoming a member of NATO. This will happen only if Turkey turns Islamic. Then and only then will NATO’s line will pass over Cyprus.